Re: Spanish locale and name sorting

We Spanish-speaking people would expect the sorted list to come out with all "mac something" and all "san something" before "maceira" and "sangregorio" respectively, making these longer words come out after surnames whose first word is shorter ("mac" and "san").

Maybe you expect wrong thing?

#!/usr/bin/perl --

use strict;
use warnings;

localsort("C");
localsort("Spanish - Argentina");

sub localsort
{
    use POSIX qw(setlocale LC_CTYPE);
    my( $wantlocale ) = @_;
    my $curlocale = setlocale(LC_CTYPE);

    my $setlocale = setlocale(LC_CTYPE,$wantlocale);

    if( not $setlocale  ){
        print "Couldn't switch locale from ($curlocale) to ($wantlocal
+e).\n";
    } else {
        print "Current locale is ($setlocale).\n";
        my @list = ('maceira', 'mac alister', 'mac loughlin',
        'san esteban', 'sangregorio', 'san zoilo');

        my @yes = do {
            use locale;
            sort @list;
        };

        my @no = do {
            no locale;
            sort @list;
        };

        printf "    %-20s %-20s %-20s\n", qw[unsorted use-locale no-lo
+cale ];
        print '- ' x 33,"\n";

        for my $i( 0 .. $#list ){
            printf "%3d %-20s %-20s %-20s\n", $i, $list[$i], $yes[$i],
+ $no[$i];
        }
    }

    print '- ' x 33,"\n";
    setlocale(LC_CTYPE,$curlocale);#restore
}

__END__
Current locale is (C).
    unsorted             use-locale           no-locale
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
  0 maceira              mac alister          mac alister
  1 mac alister          mac loughlin         mac loughlin
  2 mac loughlin         maceira              maceira
  3 san esteban          san esteban          san esteban
  4 sangregorio          san zoilo            san zoilo
  5 san zoilo            sangregorio          sangregorio
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Current locale is (Spanish_Spain.1252).
    unsorted             use-locale           no-locale
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
  0 maceira              mac alister          mac alister
  1 mac alister          mac loughlin         mac loughlin
  2 mac loughlin         maceira              maceira
  3 san esteban          san esteban          san esteban
  4 sangregorio          san zoilo            san zoilo
  5 san zoilo            sangregorio          sangregorio
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[download]

Comment on Re: Spanish locale and name sorting Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Spanish locale and name sorting by Jorge_de_Burgos (Beadle) on May 02, 2009 at 11:40 UTC
Maybe you expect wrong thing? Why would you say that? The output of your code on your system shows that our expectations are right -- if you use some 1252 (I think that means Windows) locale instead of UTF-8. This is the output of your program on my system. Current locale is (C). unsorted use-locale no-locale - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0 maceira mac alister mac alister 1 mac alister maceira mac loughlin 2 mac loughlin mac loughlin maceira 3 san esteban san esteban san esteban 4 sangregorio sangregorio san zoilo 5 san zoilo san zoilo sangregorio - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Couldn't switch locale from (es_AR.UTF-8) to (Spanish - Argentina). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [download] I am looking for a solution to a problem that arises under Spanish UTF-8 locales, where sorting order treats the space character as non existent.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: Spanish locale and name sorting by Jorge_de_Burgos (Beadle) on May 02, 2009 at 12:16 UTC
Down and dirty hacks are available of course. For everyday use I have come up with this: `#!/usr/bin/perl use locale; my @list = ('maceira', 'mac alister', 'mac loughlin', 'san esteban', ' +sangregorio', 'san zoilo'); sub keeping_spaces { my $aa = $a; my $bb = $b; for ($aa) { tr/ /A/; } for ($bb) { tr/ /A/; } return $aa cmp $bb; } print "$_\n" for sort keeping_spaces @list;` [download] Which outputs what we would expect: `mac alister mac loughlin maceira san esteban san zoilo sangregorio` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Spanish locale and name sorting by Anonymous Monk on May 02, 2009 at 16:46 UTC
Why would you say that? Because I don't get the results you expect :) But then I don't have `es_AR.UTF-8`. Your results column for use-locale seems to ignores setlocale (because it doesn't match mine), but your no-locale column matches mine. I suspect a bug in locale. Can you try again with "es_AR.UTF-8" instead of "Spanish - Argentina"?	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: Spanish locale and name sorting by Jorge_de_Burgos (Beadle) on May 02, 2009 at 21:30 UTC
Can you try again with "es_AR.UTF-8" instead of "Spanish - Argentina"? Sure thing. As you will see, with this output of your program, we are back to the situation I asked about in the first post of this thread: Current locale is (C). unsorted use-locale no-locale - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0 maceira mac alister mac alister 1 mac alister maceira mac loughlin 2 mac loughlin mac loughlin maceira 3 san esteban san esteban san esteban 4 sangregorio sangregorio san zoilo 5 san zoilo san zoilo sangregorio - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Current locale is (es_AR.UTF-8). unsorted use-locale no-locale - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0 maceira mac alister mac alister 1 mac alister maceira mac loughlin 2 mac loughlin mac loughlin maceira 3 san esteban san esteban san esteban 4 sangregorio sangregorio san zoilo 5 san zoilo san zoilo sangregorio - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [download] I suspect a bug in locale. So do I, if I am entitled to (I don't know anything about locale).	[reply] [d/l]


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